After I had left his neighbourhood, I wrote to him three affectionate
letters, and at last got a reply--of vehement accusation. It can now
concern no one to know, how many and deep wounds he planted in me. I
forgave; but all was too instructive to forget.

For some years I rested in the belief that the epithet "_secular_
punishment" either solely denoted punishment in a future age, or else
only of long duration. This evades the horrible idea of eternal and
triumphant Sin, and of infinite retaliation for finite offences.
But still, I found my new creed uneasy, now that I had established
a practice (if not a right) of considering the moral propriety
of punishment. I could not so pare away the vehement words of the
Scripture, as really to enable me to say that I thought transgressors
_deserved_ the fiery infliction. This had been easy, while I measured
their guilt by God's greatness; but when that idea was renounced, how
was I to think that a good-humoured voluptuary deserved to be raised
from the dead in order to be tormented in fire for 100 years? and what
shorter time could be called secular? Or if he was to be destroyed
instantaneously, and "secular" meant only "in a future age," was he
worth the effort of a divine miracle to bring him to life and again
annihilate him? I was not willing to refuse belief to the Scripture on
such grounds; yet I felt disquietude, that my moral sentiment and the
Scripture were no longer in full harmony.

* * * * *

In this period I first discerned the extreme difficulty that there
must essentially be, in applying to the Christian Evidences a
principle, which, many years before, I had abstractedly received as
sound, though it had been a dead letter with me in practice. The Bible